Before the highways cut through the desert and the tourists arrived with their cameras and curiosity, there was Taos -- a place so ancient, so layered with blood and prayer and ambition, that the very earth seemed to breathe with the memory of everything that had happened there. Blanche Grant's remarkable chronicle, When Old Trails Were New: The Story of Taos, New Mexico, takes readers back to a time when this storied corner of the American Southwest was a crossroads of civilizations, wher...

This story of Taos, New Mexico covers some four centuries of history. It is the story of a village that never gave up despite periods of drought, violence from unfriendly Indians and other hazards of frontier life. At one time, Taos was even the site of a short-lived but bloody rebellion against the United States government. Grant tells this and other fascinating true stories of a settlement that was home to trappers and explorers and later to artists and writers. Among its famous and best...

A lively history of the nineteenth-century American West from the #1 New York Times –bestselling author of Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee ."Glorious . . . Do not miss a page." — Rocky Mountain NewsFrontier life, Dee Brown writes, "was hard, unpleasant most of the time," and "lacking in almost all amenities or creature comforts." ...

The Pulitzer Prize– and Bancroft Prize–winning epic history of the American Southwest from the acclaimed twentieth-century author of Lamy of Santa Fe.Great River was hailed as a literary masterpiece and enduring classic when it first appeared in 1954. It is an epic history of four civilizations—Native American, Spanish, Mexican, and Anglo-American—that people the Southwest through ten centuries. With the skill of a novelist, the veracity of a schol...

My Arizona Adventures is the true first-person account of an authentic American pioneer. When Tom Sanders came to Arizonas central highlands there was nothing there; there were no roads, no towns, no law, and no protection from marauding Indians. There was nothing there but opportunities for the strong, resolute and lucky.The year was 1863, Arizona had just become a separate Territory and its vast central interior was the last unknown area of the United States. That change...

"There is an old saw in the army which teaches that you can never know a man until after having made a scout with him in bad weather. All the good qualities and bad in the human make up force their way to the surface under the stimulus of privation and danger, and it not infrequently happens that the comrade who at the military post was most popular, by reason of charm of manner and geniality, returns from this trial sadly lowered in the estimation of his fellows, and that he who in the ga...

The Chronicles of the Old West gathers four of Emerson Hough's historical studies into a sweeping account of the American frontier: its trails, cattle ranges, outlaw legends, migrant caravans, and gradual absorption into national life. Written in a vigorous, documentary style that blends anecdote, reportage, and romantic retrospect, the volume belongs to the early twentieth-century tradition of frontier historiography, when writers sought to preserve memories of a rapidly vanishing West wh...

No homeseekers were ever plagued with more bad luck than those who followed the Englishman John Charles Beales to southern Texas late in 1834. On the banks of Las Moras Creek, not far from the Rio Grande, they established the colony of Dolores. Among them were the British-born Sarah Ann Horn and her husband and two small sons. For the pretty Sarah Ann, who shared her neighbors' fear of Comanche raids, the year or so in Dolores was a preview of a special hell to come. The threat of an invas...

The renowned historian's classic study of the Texas Ranger Division, presented with its original illustrations and a foreword by Lyndon B. Johnson.Texas Rangers tells the story of this unique law enforcement agency from its origin in 1823, when it was formed by "Father of Texas" Stephen F. Austin, to the 1930s, when legendary lawman Frank Hamer tracked down the infamous outlaws Bonnie and Clyde. Both colorful and authoritative, it presents the evolution an...

These are the chronicles of the trail drivers of Texas those rugged men and, sometimes, women who drove cattle and horses up the trails from Texas to northern markets in the late 1800s. Gleaned from members of the Old Time Trail Drivers' Association, these hundreds of real life stories some humorous, some chilling, some rambling, all interesting form an invaluable cornerstone to the literature, history, and folklore of Texas and the West.John Marvin Hunter (March 18, 1880 – June 29...

When the West Was Young by Frederick R. Bechdolt is a vivid and adventurous collection of frontier tales that captures the spirit, danger, and excitement of the American frontier during its formative years. Blending historical atmosphere with action-driven storytelling, the work brings to life a rugged era defined by exploration, conflict, and the shaping of new communities. Set against the backdrop of expanding settlements, untamed landscapes, and emerging towns, the stories follow indivi...

"Notice is hereby given to all persons, that Christopher Carson, a boy about 16 years old, small of his age, but thick-set; light hair, ran away from the subscriber, living in Franklin, Howard County, Missouri, to whom he had been bound to learn the saddler's trade. . . . One cent reward will be given to any person who will bring back the said boy.''This notice appeared in the Missouri Intelligencer of October 6, 1826, at about the same time that Kit Carson, in the humble role of "...